There aren’t too many surgery games knocking about on the market at the moment for whatever reason, so it seems appropriate that my first experience of such a genre should be on the DS. In the past few months I’ve similarly had my first experience of being a lawyer, being lost on a deserted island and being a quality chef on the very same platform, so it feels particularly appropriate that I find myself walking into the operating room carrying my dual-screened handheld before me.

Developed by Atlus (of Tactics Ogre and Snowboard Kids fame), Trauma Centre puts you in the surgical slippers of newcomer doctor Derek Stiles. Set in the year 2018, diseases such as cancer and AIDS have been eradicated, yet a new and mysterious pandemic known as GUILT is spreading fast throughout the world. The unfolding story sees Derek pitched straight into the battle against the disease and discovering its routes.

Divided between six chapters, progression in Trauma Centre is achieved by completing a series of varying operations on patients. Using your trusty stylus hand you’ll soon be sewing up wounds, slicing out tumours and draining fluid pockets in no time. Each task is introduced to you carefully and you’re given a whole range of different tools with which to carry out your work, although procedures presented offer little if any room for innovation and tend to stick to repeating a similar routine. Derek is helped by possessing a rare and prodigious gift known as the ‘Healing Touch’, a gift that presents itself as a timed period of slow motion that gives the player to perform surgical techniques in fractions of what they’d take in real-time.

Not that this ever becomes too much of an issue, as familiarity with the techniques needed proves a godsend on occasion. These are mostly when the game decides to throw you a brutal difficulty spike out of the blue, meaning that progress through the game is very uneven and can see you completing whole chapters in no time at all and then getting stuck on a single episode for hours on end. This proves to be Trauma Centre’s main downfall and in lots of circumstances will mean that players will hang up their scalpel in frustration long before the game ends.

This apart, the game is a very enjoyable experience. Stylus use is precise and sensitive and rewards people for being genuinely skilled and careful with what they are doing, with different ranks being awarded to the player after the end of each operation depending on how they performed. The story is slightly confusing in places but remains interesting throughout, whilst the game maintains the same Japanimation style used in Capcom’s Phoenix Wright games. Sounds limit themselves to general background tunes and assorted operation sound effects throughout, but they suffice.

The latest in a line of innovative DS games, Trauma Centre certainly provides an entertaining game that is more than worthy of being given a go by anyone with the console. The only potential fly in the surgical ointment will be the confusing and at times utterly insane difficulty that is thrown straight at the player seemingly at random. The upshot of this is that it is likely that only the most patient and determined gamer will persist with the game until completion, which given the general quality of Under The Knife is a genuine shame.